Google Accidentally Spreads Virus

Google may have accidentally infected some subscribers of the Google Video mailing list with the W32/Kapser.A@mm virus, better known as the "Karma Sutra" worm. At least three separate e-mails went out over the list that may have been infected, reaching approximately 50,000 subscribers. The virus will overwrite selected files on a specific date and was first discovered in February of this year.

"If you think you have downloaded this virus from the group or an email message, we recommend you run your antivirus program to remove it," the company said in an e-mail that went over the list on Wednesday. Google officials said the company was taking steps to prevent future occurrences.

Google to sell Ads in Print Media

Google has plans to test the concept of selling print ads in 50 major newspapers. Some of the companies involved in the 3-month test are Gannet, The Tribune Company, The New York Times Company and The Washington Post Company.

Google will begin testing the system with 100 advertisers later this month. They hope to reach small businesses as well as online retailers. Earlier this year Google began selling ads in magazines such as PC World and Motor Trend. According to an article by Wendy Davis for MediaPost Publications the magazine venture has not been as successful as planned. Jonathan Rosenberg, Goggle's senior vice president for product management said this about the print ad sales program "probably hasn't taken off as fast as we would like." With their latest venture into print media Google is hoping to generate more revenue while helping the struggling newspaper business. During the test Google will not earn any revenue. They usually keep around 20 percent of the revenue for the Internet ads they place. An article from the New York Times had this to say "Some newspapers see Google's proposed system as a way to increase sales. ‘Every day in the newspaper we have a fair amount of space we set aside for ads that we are unable to fill,' said Owen Youngman, a vice president for development at The Chicago Tribune. "Google says they can bring us thousands of small advertisers for space we would otherwise fill with house ads, and we say ‘Great.' " With newspapers struggling to compete with the online media while maintaining their circulation is this really going to be an effective venture for Google? If readership is declining then who will be viewing these ads in the print media? The issue of succeeding in print advertising must be something Google has thought about. Why else would they test this for 3 months instead of implementing the program now? The print media is becoming something of a dinosaur. Why would Google not target online newspapers for advertising instead of a medium that can barely keep its head above water? We will know the results in about 3 months from now. Google is willing to experiment with a concept that seems to be a backward and risky notion. Where will people read the results? From their local newspaper or an online media source?

Google finally owns Adsense.com

Three years after Google launched its Adsense service, the company finally owns the Adsense.com domain. Previously, the domain was owned by Adsense Consulting, who bought the domain in 1996.

As one can notice below, the domain has been bought by google only recently:

Whois Record
Registrant:
Google Inc. (DOM-1550091)
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA 94043
US
Domain Name: adsense.com
Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com
Administrative Contact:
DNS Admin (NIC-14290820) Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA 94043
US
+1.6506234000
Fax- +1.6506188571
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
DNS Admin (NIC-14290820) Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA 94043
US
+1.6506234000
Fax- +1.6506188571
Created on..............: 1997-Feb-23.
Expires on..............: 2008-Feb-24.
Record last updated on..: 2006-Oct-31 20:09:57.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.GOOGLE.COM NS2.GOOGLE.COM NS3.GOOGLE.COM
NS4.GOOGLE.COM

At present Adsense.com is redirecting to Google.com but I surely expect that to change in the near future

Internet Now Serves 100 Million Websites

Yeah you read right, 100 million websites. What once was only for scientists to post text and images, and share them with colleagues now is a whole large network that includes people from every corner of the world.

Netcraft tracks a variety of website-related issue. Their November 2006 survey showed the number of websites worldwide has doubled from 50 million in May 2004 to over 100 million today.

For 2006, 27.4 million websites have been added. That easily surpasses the 17 million sites that have been created through all of 2005. Compare all this to April 1997 when Netcraft recorded the one million website milestone. All this shows that the Internet has been growing along the years, and what a growth!!!

A large percentage of this growth may be attributed to free blog services such as Blogger of Google and Live Spaces of Microsoft. All this growth looks good for search engines and paid search ads.

What shall we expect to happen? Well I personally think that this trend will continue in the years to come. We'll continue to have more and more sites........